Secondary ICT spend to hit £65,570 per school

Secondary schools are expecting to spend more than £65,500 on ICT in 2014 – the highest amount since 2008/09.

Research from the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) into technology trends in UK state schools involved 1,238 schools, including 507 secondaries.

The results show that investment in hardware replacement, peripherals, software and technical support will reach £14,220 per primary school and £65,570 in each secondary school next year.

This means that overall spending could hit £280 million in 2013/14. This compares with last year, when schools predicted a national spend of £246.5 million.

The research, carried out in conjunction with the National Education Research Panel, was conducted in July 2013.

The previous highest estimate of technology expenditure was in 2008/09 when allocations averaged around £14,000 in primary schools and £65,400 in secondary schools – around £275 million across all schools.

Since then predicted spend had decreased year-on-year until last year (2012/13) when state secondaries indicted a 1.8 per cent rise in technology expenditure.

Caroline Wright, BESA’s director, said: “UK schools have led the world in embedding technology into the learning environment and our schools now have the experience to invest wisely to optimise the value of this technology.”